Labs

BitDefender Antivirus is a newcomer to our lab, although we have previously tested versions of the BullGuard security suite, which contained the BitDefender anti-virus engine. As such, it is not really all that surprising that it achieved nearly the same overall results as BullGuard 7. It looks very different, though. It has a clear interface that makes accessing the settings straightforward and, when it detects an email-borne virus, it includes some useful detail in the message after it removes the infected attachment.

BitDefender Antivirus's email virus detection is not earth-shatteringly good and, with a detection

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rate of 68 per cent in our tests, it's below the average here. It actually found fewer email viruses than BullGuard, which is odd. It did slightly better than BullGuard at detecting the web-based threats, though, identifying 34 per cent of the problems compared to BullGuard's 31 per cent detection rate. In terms of finding viruses, there is little overall difference between the two.

BitDefender Antivirus is a standalone anti-virus program, whereas BullGuard includes a firewall, anti-spam and access to a backup service. This means that BitDefender Antivirus might appear quite expensive considering it costs only £5 less than BullGuard. However, the price includes updates for two years and you are allowed to install the software on two PCs at the same time. If you have two PCs, then in effect you are buying anti-virus detection for £7.50 a year per PC. The renewal price is £23 for a further two years, which is again attractive.

Despite the surprisingly low running costs of this package, we cannot ignore BitDefender Antivirus's distinctly average threat detection rates. If you really can't stretch to Steganos's price, the free AVG software is a better choice than BitDefender.